London Local Authorities and Transport for London Bill (By Order) Read the Third time, and passed.

Elliot Morley: The hon. Gentleman is incorrect—CO 2 has gone up 3 per cent. since 1997. It went up 3 per cent. in 1996—in one year alone—and subsequently fell back. It would have gone up 5 per cent. if not for measures introduced in the 2000 climate change review. There is no room for complacency. We are committed to getting our domestic target of 20 per cent. on track. We will introduce the climate change review and, as our amendment made clear in the recent debate on climate change, we are more than willing to consider ideas from the Opposition. So far, none have been submitted.

Colin Challen: I add my congratulations to the plaudits already given to the Secretary of State for the agreement reached in Montreal. I note that Paula Dobrianski, the US Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs who was present in Montreal, said that the United States would not welcome formal discussions geared towards a one-size-fits-all approach, which perhaps ties in with the Byrd-Hegel resolution of the US Senate. May I therefore suggest that contraction and convergence are the way forward? That is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and I hope that the Government will provide time for a Bill on that point, which has its Second Reading on 14 July.

Elliot Morley: I very much welcome my hon. Friend's interest in biofuels, and the fact that Teeside appears to be developing as one of the centres of biofuel production. I have looked at the Australian model. It is worth saying that the prime reason for setting up the Australian committee was that there were problems with consumer confidence in biofuels, particularly ethanol. That is not the case in the UK, where the mix of 5 per cent. is accepted by all car companies. However, it is important that we look at ways in which we can encourage the uptake and development of a biofuel industry in the UK, and I will give my hon. Friend's suggestion serious thought.

Ben Bradshaw: I am very interested in the project to which the hon. Gentleman refers. He is very welcome to write to me about it, because it is the kind of project that the Government are doing a great deal to support. We have an excellent record on recycling, compared with the miserable record that we inherited from the previous Conservative Government. We have trebled the rate of recycling in eight years. The hon. Gentleman's question about the WEEE directive needs to be referred to my colleagues at the DTI.

Jim Knight: It is important to achieve a negotiated settlement on the future financing on the EU for the benefit of all member states and all their residents, but we are committed to sustaining the level of payments within pillar two. That is why voluntary modulation is part of our present position, ensuring that we can move money across from pillar one to pillar two to sustain the important work that I am glad the hon. Gentleman agrees should be continued.

James Paice: (Urgent Question): I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to ask an urgent question, of which I have given notice. Will the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs make a statement on the conclusions of the independent study group on the triplet studies of bovine tuberculosis and what action she proposes to take?

Paddy Tipping: This is a difficult and contentious issue where it is important to make progress quickly, but is not it important to build on consensus? One point of consensus is improved farm biosecurity. Surely that is why pre and post-movement testing is so important. Is the Minister committed to the maximum scope for pre-movement testing? When will it start and who will carry the costs?

William McCrea: While it is true that bovine TB is falling in Northern Ireland in contrast with the significant rise in other parts and regions of the United Kingdom, the need for a wildlife cull in hot-spot areas is essential. It is not welfare-friendly to protect TB-infected wildlife, so a cull would surely be good not only for farmers but for wildlife suffering from the disease.

Owen Paterson: It really is incredible, having spent £2,000 million not curing TB with current methods, that we should have yet another consultation. To secure agreement on a method of culling, the Government must seek a derogation from the 1979 Berne convention on the conservation of European wildlife and natural habitats. Article 9 allows for derogations, but appendix IV lists a number of prohibited culling methods. How long will it take to secure a derogation, and which methods of culling will the Minister seek?

Bill Wiggin: I regret that there will not be an appeal system, so will the Minister ensure that valuations of cattle are published and updated on his website so that people know where they stand. I think that he said that the Government will not compel a farmer to cull, so may I have a reply to my letter to the Secretary of State about the appalling bullying of my constituents in Pensax? Finally, he asked for clarification of a question that I asked earlier. If the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is paying a certain price to vets for the test, will he ensure that vets cannot charge farmers more for the same work?

Theresa May: I am grateful to the Leader of the House for giving the House the opportunity for a debate on the security of energy supply, which my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) has been requesting for some time. I trust that I will have the same degree of success with the request that I shall make to the Leader of the House today.
	Given the importance of the outcome of the Montreal talks on climate change, which is of long-term significance to us all, and the fact that there has been only limited opportunity to question Ministers through Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions because there has been no oral statement on the matter, will the Leader of the House guarantee that there will be a debate in Government time on the Montreal agreements on climate change?
	I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will not have missed the various reports of recent weeks about the problems in public services. In the health service there are many NHS trusts that are in deficit to a total of many hundreds of millions of pounds. Operations are being cancelled and people's names are being taking off waiting lists. As an example of the problem, the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Hospital Trust will be cutting 280 jobs, crucially including those of nurses and doctors. We learn today that two thirds of our hospitals do not reach the top standards of cleanliness. In education, we heard yesterday that four out of 10 children come out of primary school without being able to read or write properly. So does the right hon. Gentleman not accept the need for a debate in Government time on the delivery of quality public services when Members can press Ministers on why, with so much extra money going to our public services, the Government are still failing to deliver the quality of services that people need?
	Of course, public services are also delivered by local councils. The Audit Commission reports today that four out of five of the top-performing local authorities are Conservative controlled. I am sure the Leader of the House will want to join me in congratulating the best performing council in the country, Conservative-controlled Wandsworth. At the same time we are told that half of all town halls are wasting council tax payers' money, so will he ensure that there is a debate in which we can discuss how local authorities can best deliver improved public services and how they can learn from the success of Conservative councils?
	Finally, in the spirit of Christmas good will, may I say to the Leader of the House that we on the Conservative Benches stand ready to give any help and advice—[Laughter.] Wait for it—any help and advice to Labour or Liberal Democrat Members who wish to learn how to run a successful leadership election.

Geoff Hoon: My right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary is making a statement to the House in due course, and I am sure that he will deal with these issues in more detail. As I have had a passing acquaintance with such matters over a number of years, I can assure my hon. Friend that it is important that in the construction of those two very large ships—the largest ships that have been produced in the United Kingdom's history—the work should, wherever possible, be made available in the United Kingdom, subject of course to all the appropriate safeguards that are required. This represents an enormous opportunity for British shipyards. My right hon. Friend made his statement yesterday, and I am sure that further details will be available later today.

Michael Weir: May we have a debate on the amount of Government money that is wasted on preparing for self-invested personal pension schemes on residential property prior to the Chancellor's welcome U-turn in the Budget?

David Chaytor: In Iraq today, citizens will vote in their general election and they will not use the first-past- the-post system. In the United Kingdom, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly do not use the first-past-the-post system. In 2007, people who vote in local elections in Scotland will not use that system. We have the unfinished business of the reform of the House of Lords. Whatever the elected element, no one argues for the first- past-the post system. Is not it time that we had a debate in the House on the merit of the respective systems for national and local elections in England?

Andrew Tyrie: A few moments ago, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) asked whether we could have a debate on extraordinary rendition. What we got from the Leader of the House was astonishing complacency. He said that all the questions on that matter had been "satisfactorily dealt with". What we are talking about is people being kidnapped around the world and transported to countries that practise torture. Some of those people have subsequently been released, and they have described the horrific torture to which they have been subjected. Condoleezza Rice's assurances on this matter have been shown to be completely hollow by the legal community in the UK. The Foreign Secretary has given assurances that he has been looking at records and cannot find anything. Of course he cannot find anything; the Home Secretary told me in answer to a parliamentary question that records are not kept once a transit has been completed. No wonder there are no records; they are not kept. Surely it is time for the Leader of the House to find Government time for a debate on this issue, on which there is now widespread public disquiet.

John Reid: With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the defence industrial strategy, which I am publishing today and which has been laid before the House.
	The men and women of our armed forces play a vital role as a force for good in the world. I know that the whole House—and every complexion of party in the House—is very proud of the work that they do, in dangerous and demanding circumstances, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans or closer to home. We recognise that three elements are required for them to be the best in the world: the intellectual element, involving training, planning and doctrine; the physical element; and the element of morale. All those elements are important. Our armed forces can be this effective only if the Ministry of Defence and industry work as a team to provide them with the best possible tools to do the job, particularly in regard to the second element, the physical component of our fighting power, which involves equipment and capability.
	The defence industrial strategy, which we released today, is the product of five months of concerted effort by Ministry of Defence civil servants, the armed forces, other Government Departments, industry and the trade unions. It has at its heart the provision of effective and capable equipment to our armed forces. On a personal note, I should like to pay tribute to the noble Lord Drayson, who has overseen the production of this substantial document.
	The House will know that we are in the middle of a substantial transformation, enabled by the sustained growth in the defence budget that has been a feature of each of the spending reviews that have been conducted since the Government came to power. We are procuring a series of major new platforms, including future aircraft carriers—on which I made a written statement to the House yesterday—type 45 destroyers, new medium-weight armoured fighting vehicles, the A400M, Typhoon and joint combat aircraft, among others. This transformation has at its heart the delivery of truly network-enabled capabilities, linking sensors, decision-makers and shooters in a much more integrated way.
	We expect these platforms to have very long service lives. The future business for the defence industry in many sectors will therefore be in supporting and upgrading the platforms throughout what we believe will be their long service lives, rapidly and incrementally inserting technology to meet emerging threats, fulfilling new requirements and responding to innovative opportunities. That is what we expect of a large section of industrial effort, rather than immediately moving to the design and manufacture of the next generation.
	This will require rationalisation within the defence industry, particularly of over-capacity in production facilities. In some cases, sustaining the skills, technologies and industrial capabilities that we need will be challenging. Change is sometimes challenging and painful, but the one thing that would be much more painful than not changing in a changing world would be to refuse to change, and to find that redundancy and irrelevance had overtaken the product. While we may look overseas to meet some requirements, we will need to ensure that we in this country maintain military freedom of action and safeguard our national security. This degree of change and transformation—and the respect for future planning capabilities and the maintenance of our strategic safeguards—implies the need for a comprehensive strategy for how we engage with the industrial base.
	The defence industrial strategy, building on the 2002 defence industrial policy, articulates a strategic view of our defence requirements going forward by sector, and the principles that will underpin procurement and industrial decisions in the future. It communicates for the first time to industry and the City those skills, technologies and industrial capabilities that are assessed as being required onshore in the UK in order to sustain the armed forces' ability to operate with an appropriate level of sovereignty. It recognises that this will be possible only if we have a healthy, profitable and internationally competitive industry capable of responding to our requirements.
	The defence industrial strategy also investigates how we might with industry address mismatches between planned activity and the work required to sustain desired capabilities. It will give industry and investors a much clearer idea of our priorities, allowing them to plan more assuredly for the future, which will be of benefit to the management, shareholders and workers in industry.
	I now turn to the impact of the analysis that we have conducted on specific sectors of the defence industry. In the maritime sector, the Government are investing in the biggest naval shipbuilding programme that the Royal Navy has seen for two generations. The highly capable expeditionary fleet that will result will offer significantly enhanced military capability, well suited to the demands of the 21st century.
	However, we need to recognise that the industry is currently fragmented—different companies and facilities undertake submarine build, surface ship build and support, even though the skills required often cross over. We must also face the fact that current levels of work, although huge by comparison with the recent past, will not last for ever. Once we are over the hump of the major reinvestment in new ships in about 10 years' time—that is how far ahead we are looking at the shortest end of our horizon—it will not be affordable to sustain excess industrial capacity in the longer term. That means making plans now so that we can keep the required key skills onshore in the UK.
	For submarines, we are committed to maintaining onshore the ability to design, manufacture and support through life all aspects of that capability, which is so important to our national security. Cost growth in the area, however, is a real and persistent problem. We must control cost. To improve productivity, a new structure is required.
	As my announcement on the future carrier in a written statement to the House yesterday demonstrates, we need to sustain the ability to design and integrate complex surface ships and to support and maintain them through life. A stable and healthy programme of warships and other complex vessels will continue to be built in the UK, and that will maintain and grow the high-end skills that we need. However, we might look to outsource some lower-end manufacturing offshore. That makes sense, not least in order to avoid the boom-and-bust cycle of sustaining or creating capacity for which there is no medium or long-term demand. That is also a much better arrangement for employees, providing the basis for more security and stability to develop and enhance their skills in long-term structured and secure employment.
	In the air sector, the Royal Air Force is in the middle of a substantial re-equipment programme, introducing into service the Eurofighter Typhoon and looking forward to the arrival in the next decade of the joint strike fighter. Both those aircraft will last for at least 30 years. Our current plans do not, therefore, envisage the UK needing to design and build a future generation of manned fast jet aircraft beyond the current projects—that is some 30 years away.
	That has unavoidable consequences, in forward planning, for the medium-term shape of the aerospace industry. We need to retain, however, the high-end aerospace engineering and design capability required to support, maintain, operate and upgrade Typhoon and the joint strike fighter through life, so that they are capable of tackling new challenges as they come along and incorporating new technology and improvements to meet those challenges. That is key to operating our aircraft in the manner that we would choose.
	The aerospace industry has a critical role to play, and there will be substantial business opportunities for BAE Systems and other companies such as Rolls Royce and SELEX. I am pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with Rolls Royce to provide future through-life support to the RB199 engine on the RAF's Tornado aircraft.
	As the focus shifts from designing and building new manned aircraft towards supporting them through life, industry will have to make that challenging transformation. We are, however, committed—this is enshrined in the defence industrial strategy—to working with industry to manage that transformation with foresight to our mutual advantage. To that end, we intend to enter into negotiations with BAE Systems in the new year with a view to agreeing how best to work together—and with the many other key suppliers in the sector—to ensure that the key skills and capabilities that we need are sustained in a cost-effective manner. That work will be complex and arduous and will necessarily take time. It is essential, however, if we are to maintain stability in a period of transformation.
	This is an exciting, high technology industry with a healthy future. I am delighted to announce that we will invest in a significant technology demonstration programme for uninhabited combat aerial vehicles. That will help us to better understand the potential military benefits of uninhabited aerial vehicles—sometimes referred to as unmanned aerial vehicles, I have been instructed to say—including combat versions.

Liam Fox: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his statement, and for making copies available to the Opposition in advance. As he will appreciate, however, it was a long statement and the document is extremely complex. The House might benefit from more time in which to consider the implications, and from a longer debate at some stage.
	The document has been much trailed. It contains a number of points that we welcome, and many that we have called on the Government to adopt in recent years. We welcome the new tone of partnership between Government and industry. More than a year ago we called for
	"a mature partnership with industry, with both sides working together from a project's inception through to the completion of its service life." —[Official Report, 4 November 2004; Vol. 426, c. 488.]
	If Ministers have genuinely embraced the idea, the House should welcome that. We also welcome the identification of key capabilities that Ministers consider it essential to retain in the interests of our national sovereignty, although we shall have to study some of the detail.
	The Treasury, however, holds the key to much of what is in the document. Has the Treasury agreed to fund the defence industrial strategy fully in the 2007 comprehensive spending review, and what discussions has the Secretary of State had with the Chancellor to that end? If the defence budget is squeezed in the spending round, the document becomes simply a wish list. Implementation is everything.
	Has the Treasury made an assessment of the effect of spending on defence-related research and development and equipment on Britain's overall economic competitiveness, and will the Secretary of State make such information available to the House? Where onshore capability is maintained for reasons of strategic assurance, it is vital that value for money is guaranteed, especially when sole sourcing is involved. What measures will be established to ensure that, when the economic forces of competition are absent, taxpayers' money is best protected?
	I have a number of specific sectoral questions. The document states:
	"In a change to the stated Defence Industrial Policy, there is no absolute sovereign requirement to construct all our warship hulls on shore".
	Does the Secretary of State expect to buy hulls from abroad? What assessment have the Government made of the impact on the shipbuilding industry and employment therein?
	Individual helicopter programmes have been amalgamated in the overarching future rotorcraft capability process, and the overall budgets have been reduced by £1.4 billion on the basis that the Financial Reporting Council will identify synergies and savings. I think we have all heard that from Departments in the past. The most pressing requirements identified by recent reports from the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee are caused by shortfalls in the helicopter lift capability that is essential to our activity in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. However, more than two thirds of the £3 billion FRC budget is about to be spent on two programmes, the Merlin Mk1 upgrade and Future Lynx programmes, most of which are unrelated to those requirements. Furthermore, £1.2 billion is scheduled to be spent on purchasing, without competition, 80 Future Lynx helicopters for the Army and Navy.
	An Army purchase is required to spread the non-recurring costs, but it is unlikely that such a route would have been followed if operational requirements had been the main driver. That approach seems to be at odds with the avowed aim of the strategy to put the cost-effective acquisition of capability at centre stage. Perhaps the Secretary of State will deal with the apparent discrepancy.
	The future aircraft carrier project was unveiled in the strategic defence review in 1998, with the first carrier due to enter service 14 years later in 2012. More than seven years down the line, we still have no firm order placed and no in-service date declared. Yesterday we had what is now described as a two-stage incremental approach to main gate. We will have another long wait before costs and timings are revealed.
	Will the Secretary of State confirm that both carriers will miss what the Government used to say were the target in-service dates of 2012 and 2015? Is it not true that the industry expects no first carrier before 2014, and no second carrier before 2106 at the earliest? Where does that leave the existing fleet of three small carriers, one of which has been paid off prematurely while the other two are due for disposal well before the likely in-service dates of their successors? Above all, where does it leave the capability of the Royal Navy, which has already sacrificed so many of its other warships for the sake of the promised future carriers?
	The statement made a passing reference to maintaining onshore the ability to design and build submarines, but no mention was made of the all-important issue of replacing the Trident fleet. Making the decision about embracing Trident is the step that the Government embrace about as much as Dracula would embrace a crucifix. Building a new fleet of missile submarines will have a massive impact on our defence industrial plans, and the time scale cannot be less than 12 to 15 years. That is why the Government pledged in the last Parliament to make the decision in this one.
	Will the Government now face up to what is a vital issue? Why is the Secretary of State so afraid to do so? Of whom or of which is he more scared, the Chancellor, the Prime Minister in waiting, or the dissent of many of his Back Benchers? When will he begin in earnest the debate about the future of the nuclear deterrent on which people on both sides of the argument are willing, indeed eager, to begin?
	Let me assure him in one respect. If the Government take the right decision, they will be able to count on the support of the Conservatives to ensure that the country remains protected indefinitely against nuclear blackmail. The generosity of the Opposition to the Government at this time is unbounded.
	Overall, this may be a rather pessimistic strategy document. The argument seems to be that when the current tranche of orders is completed, surplus capacity will have to be dealt with. I wonder what assumptions are made in this assessment of the outlook for British defence exports and what measures the Government could put in place to ensure that some of the surplus capacity is used to expand our defence exports overseas, especially in the aerospace industry.
	At first glance, there are a number of positive elements in the strategy document, but there are also a number of anxieties that will be felt across the country. The Secretary of State may be able to address some of them, but the Chancellor remains the key to preventing it from being a strategy of defence industrial decline. Sovereignty comes at a price; will the Chancellor and the Government be willing to pay it?

John Reid: There are obviously some elements of the hon. Gentleman's contribution that I greatly welcome. I think that the document is important and I have no doubt that we will return to it in the course of our debates. Perhaps, as it is a substantial document, we could chat through the usual channels about how best to handle that.
	Secondly, I believe that we should try to achieve as much consensus as possible in respect of the document. I have always taken that view on defence as a whole. Issues of national security should, as far as possible, be resolved on a non-party basis. That is not easy and it does not mean the absence of criticism, but the consensual approach should be welcomed.
	I note that the hon. Gentleman offers me the opportunity of going, as they would say in East Kilbride, "mob-handed" to meet the Chancellor with the Conservative party behind me. If I do not immediately accept his offer, I am sure that he will understand why. My old friend the Chancellor has overseen and watched from a distance. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the foreword to the document, he will see that one of the three faces pictured at the top is that of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury—and he is smiling. It can also be seen that the word "no" does not appear anywhere under his signature. As far as I can make out, that is a first.
	I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there has been a great deal of cross-Government participation. That is why, sitting alongside me on the Front Bench, is the Minister for Industry and the Regions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael) and—a little further down, but close to us in spirit—my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General, who is also smiling. Clearly, the Government have adopted a united approach on this matter.
	More seriously, the hon. Gentleman asked me whether the Chancellor has settled with me on the next three spending rounds. Of course he has not settled all that with me. We should remember that the rounds stretch through to 2015 and beyond, and it is obvious that no responsible Government would make commitments that far in advance. Over the past few years, there has been a real increase in defence spending which, as I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would in all fairness admit, was not always the case under the last Conservative Government. In fact, that period saw a 29 per cent. cut in real terms in defence spending. There is a great deal of unity on the part of the Government and I am glad that there is a great deal of consensus on the general direction of where we are going with our defence industrial strategy.
	It is a detailed publication and it is divided into three parts. The first provides a strategic overview; the second an analysis of specific sectors; and the third deals with implementation and how we have achieved implementation thus far. On maritime, the hon. Gentleman was good enough to read out the section that said that there would be no blanket requirement for hulls to be built onshore, but he unfortunately missed out the next part of the sentence, which says that there is a need to maintain a sustainable work load for a viable restructured industry in this country.
	Yesterday's announcement that 60 per cent. of the work on the two biggest crafts—at 60,000 tonnes—ever to be built by the Navy will be allocated to British shipyards demonstrates clearly that we are trying to maintain a sustainable level of employment and skills, particularly at the high-end sector of the technological development of shipbuilding and refurbishment. We are seeking long-term clarity and attempting to introduce ships at what might be called a regular drumbeat in order to assist the maintenance of skills. If we need a peak capacity at the lower end of production—the sort of crafts that would not traditionally be regarded as warships—we reserve the right to go offshore, but yesterday's announcement clearly shows that we intend to maintain a sustainable work load for a viable restructured industry.
	The hon. Gentleman asked several detailed questions about aircraft carriers and in-service dates, but he appears to have missed something important from yesterday's announcement. By innovatively involving the companies that are to produce the new carriers—British Aerospace and the rest of the alliance—in the maintenance, updating and refitting of the existing aircraft carriers, we have effectively ensured continuity of capability. That is why the First Sea Lord, the Chief of the Naval Staff, said that yesterday's announcement was the best Christmas present that the Navy could have been given.
	On Trident, I have little to add to what I have already said. It is a very important discussion, but we want to take time to reflect on it. With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, we have clearly said, first, that we will retain the nuclear deterrent. We said that unambiguously six months ago in our manifesto. Secondly, the basis of retention is the assumption that, as long as potential enemies have nuclear weapons, we will retain them. Thirdly, we are not discussing whether to retain Trident, but whether in 15 to 20 years' time we will need something to continue the nuclear deterrent. We have a little more time, therefore, to challenge ourselves and each other on the assumptions and practicalities of the issue. There is no need to take a peremptory decision on that in order to meet the time scale for the defence industrial strategy.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am keen to call as many Back Benchers as possible on this statement, but I am also mindful that there is other business of the House, which must be protected. May I please make a plea for brief questions and answers? Thank you.

Robert Key: I am sure that the Secretary of State's judgment in putting his trust in respect of our chemical and biological defence into the hands of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down in my constituency is entirely correct. He gave an assurance about the testing and evaluation work carried out by QinetiQ at Boscombe Down, also in my constituency, but said that he wants the European Defence Agency to consider whether we should amalgamate and rationalise some of that work across Europe. However, what about the intellectual property rights that we share with our American allies? What will their reaction be if they know that we are working with European companies, some of which are sited in a nation that is not even a full NATO member?

John Reid: Obviously, that is one of the issues that has to be dealt with. Whenever I make a statement on any aspect of defence, the hon. Gentleman always has a perfect right to comment, as his constituency seems to have an interest in almost everything defence related. He has identified a problem that we must resolve, but I shall make one general point about the EDA. We do not regard it as an autonomous body that can order and procure on its own. If I may use the expression, we think of it more as a dating agency—a body that brings member states together to collaborate on projects that they consider worthwhile. It does not act over and above the member states, but rather brings them together.

David Laws: On the helicopter sector, may I, as MP for Yeovil and an economic liberal, say that the Secretary of State has managed to strike the right balance between the need to secure key sectors and the need to achieve value for money for taxpayers? I congratulate him on that. Can we expect an announcement early in 2006 on the key Future Lynx order, provided that it meets the value-for-money criteria? Will he assure me that he will not take any advice on the matter from Conservative Front-Bench Members?

John Reid: Well, I suppose that I should begin by saying that I am deeply, deeply grateful for the support that the hon. Gentleman has shown me, given my leading position in the Labour party. I understand that that support is not supplied comprehensively for all leaders, but I thank him for what he has said.
	As for the Lynx helicopter, we are keen to ensure that its through-life and update programmes are continued. The very important skills at Agusta Westland are essential to that, and I know that the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) is right to ask about that, from his perspective both as a constituency MP and as someone with an interest in the procurement of very important assets for our armed forces. He will know that the world market in helicopter production is thriving and competitive. We would be silly not to take advantage of that, as that is the context in which we find ourselves. I happen to believe that Agusta Westland is able to do very well in the world market, given its success in providing the helicopters used to convey the President of the United States. That is at least one example of Liberals supporting the US President.

Philip Hollobone: What consideration has been given in the strategy to the importance to the United Kingdom of having an independent strategic heavy-lift capability?

John Reid: We have given that continual attention. I am musing on the word "independent". I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman means. Certainly I take responsibility as the person who, during the controversy about whether we should buy the C-17s, with Lord Gilbert was on the side of leasing C-17s. We believed that the operational capability of those huge aircraft overcame any objections that we should buy a less capable European alternative. We bought the C-17s and we are looking at buying more. As far as I can make out the RAF, whose morale will be flying a little higher than it was a few years ago, regard the C-17 as a great success. I forgot to mention it earlier. The independence of strategic airlift at European level is important. Some years ago it was identified as completely insufficient in the strategic defence review, so we tried to remedy that. We will continue to have a view on it.

Eric Forth: It might be appropriate to say a word or two about the context of this afternoon's business, because this is one of those Bills that sadly seems to have received all-party support to date, and that usually means very bad legislation indeed. Time and again in the House, we are confronted with that revolting political concept consensus, which usually involves a lack of proper debate and scrutiny of the legislation. A few of us hope to put that right and give the Bill something of a proper examination in the limited time that is now available to us this afternoon. In doing so, I start with the group of amendments that you have just identified, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	It is fair to say that the thrust of the amendments covers two principal areas of consideration—one is the general concept of consultation and the other is the contradistinction of expedience and reasonableness, which we shall perhaps come to later. In framing the amendments on consultation that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) and I have tabled, I underwent a rollercoaster ride in deciding finally where to end up, because the amendments suggest that the Treasury be obliged to consult the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs. I was in two minds about that, because when I looked at the genesis of the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs, I found a rather mixed picture, and it is fair to say—I should warn the House—that this is perhaps not quite so straightforward as it would seem.
	I wanted to create a vehicle, a mechanism, whereby somebody other than the Treasury can look at the very important matters that we are dealing with in the Bill—retrospection and all that goes with it—and I lit upon the commissioners as the most appropriate body. In doing so, I went to the Act that set up the commissioners and, indeed, to the explanatory notes to that Act, and I want to share them briefly with the House, so that hon. Members can judge whether my amendment is appropriate. Obviously, I will argue that, on balance, my amendment represents the way forward, but I want to attach a health warning to it.
	I refer first to paragraph 7 of the explanatory notes to the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005, which states:
	"The Act provides that, in the exercise of their functions, the Commissioners will comply with directions of a general nature given to them by the Treasury. It provides the legislative structure within which the Commissioners have the operational discretion to organise in the most appropriate way, and to make changes over time as necessary."
	Straightaway, we have run into a possible problem in that I am arguing that we give the commissioners the opportunity to be consulted, whereas we have right there in front of us the phrase,
	"the Commissioners will comply with directions of a general nature given to them by the Treasury."
	That is my first health warning on the amendment.

Eric Forth: Perhaps my hon. Friend will be able, as I was not because I wanted to leave time for my hon. Friends to contribute, to elaborate a little on the idea that expediency rests almost entirely on practicability, so the test would simply be, "Can it be done?", whereas reasonableness introduces more of a concept of fairness and, therefore, of judgment. That, surely, is the distinction that we are trying to make and is so important to those who may well suffer from retrospection in its worst forms.

Christopher Chope: Obviously, it would be better than not accepting the amendment at all but, in deference to my hon. Friend, the word "expedient" is far too broad for the Bill, which gives the Government power by regulation to introduce retrospective legislation to penalise British citizens with higher taxes, especially national insurance contributions. If my hon. Friend had tabled such an amendment, I would be happy to address it, but I do not wish to encourage a joint test of reasonableness and expediency, as there is an inherent conflict between the two concepts. That is why I did not table such an amendment.
	"Stroud's Judicial Dictionary" says:
	"The word 'reasonable' has in law the prima facie meaning of reasonable in regard to those circumstances in which the actor, called on to act reasonably, knows or ought to know".
	That is exactly what we are trying to achieve. The Government should act reasonably in the exercise of the great powers that it seeks in the Bill. There is no reason why we should discuss all the other uses of the word "reasonable", but it is worth remembering that expressions such as "reasonable acts", "a reasonable amount", "reasonable and probable cause", "a reasonable time" and "reasonable care" are frequently included in legislation, and have been the subject of judicial decisions. If we are to introduce strong regulations that can penalise people retrospectively and if the Government act unreasonably, it should be possible to challenge such action in the courts.

Greg Knight: My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) have done the House a service by tabling the amendments. When I perused the amendments last night, I was more attracted to my right hon. Friend's amendment No. 2, which unfortunately has not been selected. I was unsure whether his amendment No. 1 would have any effect at all if implemented. The commissioners are not at arm's length from the Treasury. They have a similar purpose, and one struggles to think of occasions when the commissioners have stood up strongly to a Treasury view on a particular matter.
	So I started out not being sympathetic to my right hon. Friend's amendment because I took the view that it was too weak to be worth the candle, but on reflecting on the matter and listening to what he said, it occurred to me that if approved by the House, it may bring some benefits in that Ministers might decide to set out guidelines to the commissioners telling them, if the power of consultation was incorporated in the Bill, that they were required to take evidence from interested third parties and listen to representations made to them. The issuing of guidelines, which is not part of my right hon. Friend's amendment but which Ministers could nevertheless do, could make his amendment worthwhile. I have been won over as the debate has progressed, because the amendment could be made to work and have some effect. So, on balance, I can say that my right hon. Friend has my support.
	I am with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch all the way on the amendments that he tabled. I cannot see how the Minister can justify resisting the use of the word "reasonable". A number of definitions were quoted to the House, but the essence of my hon. Friend's argument is contained in the "Concise Oxford English Dictionary" quotation that I read to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst earlier. The "Concise Oxford English Dictionary" defines "expedient" as "advantageous" and goes on to say—this is a killing phrase—"politic rather than just". The Paymaster General is asking us to accept the use of a power that can be taken to be unjust. I wonder why she has not thus far signified that she accepts my hon. Friend's amendments.
	I suspect it is highly likely that the courts would not interfere with the use of a power where that power can be used expediently. I do not think the courts would interfere with a Minister saying, "I took that decision because I deemed it was expedient", whereas we know from a raft of court decisions that the courts eagerly give their view where the statute concerned refers to "reasonable". Using the word "expedient" in effect gives Ministers carte blanche.
	I agree with what was said earlier. I have nothing but praise for the Paymaster General, but when we are making law and examining the phraseology that we use, we must assume the worst. I am far from happy to allow a future Government of whatever political persuasion to give powers enabling a Minister to deem, on a whim, that a decision is expedient. I hope that on reflection the House will accept my hon. Friend's amendment, and I hope the Minister will accept it.

Eric Forth: Of course I agree with my hon. Friend. The Government would probably say, "Well, it does not matter really, does it?" because those folk are far away and do not have a direct voice in what is going on here. We are talking about the Government saying that it does not matter how, when or whether they raise money, but I suspect that that would apply equally to their attitude to whether they disburse money.
	Proposed new subsection (5) says:
	"But nothing in subsection (2) authorises regulations to be made which have effect in relation to any time before 2nd December 2004."
	My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) has tabled an amendment by which he seeks to alter that date. I would prefer to remove it altogether. The Paymaster General attempted to justify that date in summing up the previous debate. She said something along the lines of , "If a Minister says on a certain date we may legislate in the future to do something that you may do in the future but we are not sure and we really don't care very much, that is all right."
	We are now into the era of blanket provision, forecasting or attempting to forecast what might be and giving the Government what amounts to a blank legislative cheque to do whatever they like. That may be all right in the minds of Ministers whose attitude, frankly, to government and Parliament over the past seven or eight years has been consistently contemptuous—we have almost come to accept that—but to have it spelled out in a Bill is going way too far. It is one thing to alter the procedures of the House, to reduce, curtail or deny debate or to cut down almost to nothing the time available to scrutinise legislation in Committee, but when phrases such as "it does not matter" or "any time before" this or that date are included in a Bill, we are getting into extremely dangerous territory.

Eric Forth: No, you were not.

Eric Forth: I believe you.

Rob Marris: The hon. Gentleman and I differ, in that I do not agree that it is retrospective, but I understand his interpretation and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General will clarify the wording.
	I take the hon. Gentleman's point about economic well-being, but I think he rather over-egged his case. He referred to a projected Government deficit of £151,000 million over the next five years, and contrasted it with the sum of £95 million. With due respect, he inadvertently did not present a true picture. The £95 million is the projected increase in tax revenue for 2004–05 as a result of the Bill. According to the regulatory impact assessment, thereafter it will be £240 million a year. In round terms, if the £240 million continued for the whole five years, the total would be more than £1 billion. I appreciate that £1 billion is about two thirds of 1 per cent. of £151 billion, but the comparison is not quite as extreme as the hon. Gentleman suggested.
	Amendment No. 5 proposes the removal of new section 4B(4) in clause 1. Will my right hon. Friend explain what the subsection means? As I said earlier, I think that if it were removed, the effect would not be what the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst wants, but I may have misunderstood. If I may use the word employed by the hon. Member for Christchurch, the subsection is slightly "opaque". I hope that my right hon. Friend will explain it, and why she wants it to remain—as I imagine she does.

Mark Hoban: The hon. Gentleman shouts out "the Magna Carta", but I am not entirely sure that national insurance was even thought of when that document was drawn up.
	Amendment No. 6 would, as explained in paragraph 20 of the explanatory notes, remove the limitation whereby the backdating applies to 2 December 2004.
	Amendment No. 16 brings out one of the key issues relating to retrospection. It is designed to put back into the Bill a particular date from which retrospection can start—11 October 2005. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and other hon. Members have already referred to the surprise of those who follow these matters closely outside this place about the Bill's relation to the Paymaster General's statement of 2 December 2004. We had a brief exchange on that matter earlier. In tax representation document 53/05, the Institute of Chartered Accountants said:
	"We do not think that anyone reading the Paymaster General's 2 December 2004 Statement could have expected the content of this Bill."
	In view of that surprise, it may be reasonable to move the date forward to 11 October 2004.
	In the same paragraph of the representation, the Institute of Chartered Accountants expresses, albeit somewhat less eloquently, the sentiments of my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) in speaking about Adam Smith. It cites passages from the European case "Stichting Goed Wonen". Paragraph 32 states:
	"The principles of the protection of legitimate expectation and legal certainty form a part of the Community legal order. They must accordingly be observed . . . by Member States".
	And paragraph 33 states:
	"Although in general the principle of legal certainty precludes a Community measure from taking effect from a point in time before its publication, it may exceptionally be otherwise where the purpose to be achieved so demands and where the legitimate expectations of those concerned are duly respected".
	I suspect that the Institute of Chartered Accountants was surprised on reading paragraph 33 and felt that its legitimate expectations had not been respected. The principles of paragraph 32, it probably thought, should apply—that people should have legitimate expectations and be able to rely on legal certainty.
	People have asked how that differs from the Rees rules that were set out in the Finance Act 1978, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch referred. It reminds me of further comments from the accountancy profession. I do not want to go into all the Rees rules again, but I would draw attention to the first of the four:
	"First, the warning must be precise in form. A mere suggestion that there are vague schemes of tax avoidance that must be countered should not suffice".
	It is the generalised nature of the Paymaster General's statement of 2 December 2004, which leads people to ask whether the first Rees rule principle has been met. The Paymaster General was explicit in saying earlier that it had been met, but others feel that it has not. That poses the question of how people should have reacted to that statement. Is it perhaps more appropriate to start the period of retrospection from 11 October 2005, when the Bill was published, and to thereby present clearly to advisers, professionals and others interested in tax matters the nature of the Government's concerns? That is the issue that we have been debating through this group of amendments and it is important to the principle of retrospection. People are looking for clarity and certainty, which the Paymaster General's statement of December 2004 perhaps did not possess in the eyes of some. I would welcome her comments on that and on other aspects of retrospection.
	Through amendment No. 18, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) seeks to amend just one line in clause 1, but leaves untouched other payments that are themselves linked to national insurance contributions. If his amendment is accepted, another one should be tabled and accepted to bring all contributions and payments into line with each other, instead of singling out statutory payments.
	Given that there is another group of amendments that we want to discuss later, I will conclude my remarks and look to the Paymaster General to be much clearer about the issue of retrospection and how it fits in with the Rees rules set out in the Finance Act 1978.

Mark Hoban: At the outset, may I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) for his role in scrutinising the Bill in Committee? It was not an onerous Committee, but he and my hon. Friends made great progress in asking detailed questions of the Paymaster General. I am therefore grateful for his work on the Bill. As the Paymaster General said on Report, this is my first opportunity to speak on tax matters as a Front-Bench spokesman. I am a chartered accountant, albeit a non-practising one—I except, of course, my annual struggle with my tax return—and I look forward to engaging in constructive debate on tax with the Treasury. I believe that the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright) is a chartered accountant, and he, too, will wish to make a contribution to our debates.
	For the benefit of Members who are new to the Bill, including my right hon. and hon. Friends who participated in our debates on Report, may I reflect why the Bill is needed? The Paymaster General referred to avoidance issues, but a separate Bill on national insurance is a needed because of the way in which national insurance and other taxes are administered. The Bill makes additional provisions to the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992. Before 1999, national insurance contributions were managed by the Department of Social Security. Since then, they have been managed by the Treasury. Until national insurance was brought within the Treasury's remit, the national insurance and the income tax systems were often out of sync, and it took some time for national insurance to catch up with changes in income tax. Indeed, at one point, the Treasury and the DSS announced wildly differing approaches to the taxation of share options within weeks of each other. At least the Bill tries to manage those processes and bring them together.
	The Bill has two principal objectives—first, to apply disclosure arrangements in the Finance Act 2004 for taxes other than national insurance to national insurance itself, and, secondly, to create the opportunity to levy retrospectively additional or new national insurance charges in cases in which the Government believe that schemes have been contrived to avoid national insurance. As the explanatory notes acknowledge, that is a first for national insurance:
	"Existing NICs legislation does not allow regulations to be made which can take effect that far back."
	That captures the flavour of our earlier debate on retrospection. I wish to highlight three issues that have been raised in debates on the Bill: retrospection; the breadth of the Bill and the problems that that has caused; and the delay between the introduction of primary and secondary legislation, and the comments that the Paymaster General made about the subject.
	On retrospection, we have debated the Paymaster General's statement in December 2004 and the issues that arise from it. There are concerns about retrospection, but I do not want to reopen the wounds that were exposed on Report. The Institute of Chartered Accountants, in a letter from the tax faculty to the Paymaster General in February this year, highlighted three issues, including, first, the test of certainty and the fact that taxpayers should be aware of how much tax they pay. They are entitled to expect that they will be taxed in accordance with the law in force at the time of the relevant transaction. Retrospection undermines those expectations of certainty. Secondly, the institute considered the legal basis of retrospection and the way in which it sits in the wider context of EU and human rights law. Looking at emerging EU case law, it said that
	"the state cannot retrospectively remove a right without a transitional period".
	The Bill does not, as far as I am aware, provide a transitional period for the removal of a right. The test of the Bill, therefore, may not be in the House but in the courts.
	The third issue raised was the potential of retrospective legislation to undermine the credibility of the UK tax system in the eyes of UK taxpayers. The Institute of Chartered Accountants rightly observes that by and large the UK tax system has a high degree of credibility, the tax rules are obeyed, and taxpayer compliance and honesty are good. If we introduce increased uncertainty into the tax system by greater use of retrospection, the predictability and certainty that is such a feature of the UK tax regime will start to diminish, perhaps leading to concern on the part of international employers. If they come to the UK and site operations here, will they find the tax regime changing without prior warning? We need to bear in mind those three aspects when we consider retrospection and its impact on the overall tax environment in which we work.
	A further concern about retrospection is its impact on the law-making process. If retrospection on a wide scale becomes institutionalised, will law making become lax? If the Revenue thinks that it can have a second bite at the cherry by using retrospection to correct mistakes that it has made in drafting legislation, will that create an environment in which the Revenue takes less care in drafting the original legislation? I am sure the Treasury and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs will not see retrospection as a way of taking a more relaxed approach to drafting legislation. On the whole they are diligent in drafting legislation and we want that to continue.
	We discussed today the breadth of powers in the Bill. I remarked earlier that tax advisers were surprised at the content of the Bill and the breadth of the measure. In its report on the 2004 pre-Budget report the Treasury Committee, commenting on the Paymaster General's statement on 2 December 2004, stated:
	"The indication in this statement that the Government will continue to announce proposed legislation, effective from the day of the announcement, to stop schemes which come to their attention is nothing new."
	Indeed, we touched upon the Rees rules, which relate to that. The Treasury Committee went on:
	"What is new is the declaration that future schemes, not yet devised or which have not yet come to the Inland Revenue's attention, may be stopped as from 2 December 2004. This amounts to a general anti-avoidance rule in this area of taxation of income and rewards, although no new powers are being taken by government."
	So, in the Committee's view, the very thing that the Government had backed away from—introducing their disclosure rules in the Finance Act 2004—because of criticism from the tax law review committee at the Institute for Fiscal Studies and comments from the Chartered Institute of Taxation, they seemed to have backed towards. We need to look again at how the legislation works.
	The Paymaster General spoke of the importance of making sure that the proper or right amount of tax is paid. In seeking to extract that, how do the Government distinguish between planning, mitigation and avoidance? There is a spectrum. If people are following the law, at what point do the Government intervene to tackle avoidance issues? We will need to consider that. The Paymaster General referred to the process for scrutinising secondary legislation, and that may give us the opportunity to do so in Committee when those statutory instruments are laid. Taxpayers have a right to expect that the tax law on the day on which they undertake a transaction will continue to apply to that transaction going forward.
	The third and final issue that I shall comment on is the delay between primary and secondary legislation. Primary legislation tackles the PAYE and income tax aspects of a contrived scheme. Under the Bill the consequent national insurance secondary legislation can come forward so that amendments made to income tax legislation to close down avoidance schemes can be used in national insurance legislation to close down similar loopholes.

Soft Drinks in Schools

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not strictly true of interventions. It normally applies to major contributions to Adjournment debates. In any event, as we have time in hand, the normal customs do not apply on this occasion.

John Healey: The established industry is beginning to make serious representations about the contribution that it could play, and we welcome them.
	The problems of diet, health and obesity among children have been recognised, and there is now a real will in Government to make improvements. More nutritious school food could help to reduce the risk of diet-related health problems such as obesity, but also of cancer, coronary heart disease and diabetes in later life.
	For some time, the Government have been committed to promoting whole school approaches to health. School meal standards were reintroduced in April 2001. The first standards, incidentally, were in place for more than 20 years and it was promised then that they would be reviewed after a time. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills has made clear, that time has now come. The House will also be aware that in March this year, the Secretary of State announced a package of measures designed to improve significantly the quality of school food and committed £235 million of funding to help achieve it.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck mentioned the school meals review panel—an expert group that was convened by the Department as a temporary advisory group. The panel comprises 24 members from a variety of professional backgrounds, including field and academic dieticians and nutritionists, head teachers, governors and other school staff, support staff, catering and industry professionals. The Department also invited observers from other Departments that had a contribution to make to the panel's proceedings to attend its meetings.
	The panel's remit was to advise the Government on how best to meet their commitments in the public health White Paper, which set out to improve school food through the revision of school meals standards aimed at delivering a reduction in pupils' consumption of fat, salt and sugar and an increase in the consumption of fruit, vegetables and other foods containing essential nutrients. Anyone living with young children or who has had them in the past will be aware of the scale of the challenge to get them to eat healthily and nutritiously.
	As my hon. Friend mentioned, the panel's report was entitled, "Turning the Tables: Transforming School Food". He quoted quite extensively from it and I welcome the clear support that he gave to its principal approach and findings when it was published. As I said earlier, it remains subject to consultation that runs to 31 December. The report recommends far-reaching changes to the standard of food and drink in schools. It recommends that tough minimum food-based standards should be implemented for school lunches by September 2006, stipulating the portions of food that should be served, and, importantly, restricting children's choices to ensure that they cannot opt out of healthier food.
	Anyone concerned about those issues would recognise that such measures will work best when children receive consistent messages about food from schools. Most would accept that there is no point in setting strict standards for lunchtime food, if children can then access foods that have a low nutritional value or are high in sugar and salt elsewhere on the school premises at other times during the school day. To that end, the panel also recommends that standards similar to those for school lunches should also apply to tuck shops, vending machines and other outlets.

John Healey: My hon. Friend did indeed make those points clear in his contribution. What I am trying to set out clearly now are the panel's recommendations. To be clear, the consultation is not on the settled policy of the Government that will result from the process, but on the recommendations of the panel. Views have been invited and this evening's debate provides another valuable contribution.
	The school food trust, a non-departmental public body, is being set up. It will give independent support to schools and parents to help make the transformation to healthier school food. It will also undertake the work necessary to develop standards for other school food.
	The school meals review panel wants children to drink water—and only water—or drinks with a nutritional value. Its view is that substituting any other drink for a healthy drink is a wasted opportunity. In "Vending healthy drinks: A guide for schools", the Food Standards Agency recommends replacing carbonated drinks with a simple healthy offer of water, milk or juice. It has also developed a nutrient profiling model that identifies food types and allocates points, depending on the level of each nutrient per 100 g of food. Products are then categorised on the basis of their overall points score. However, the model has been developed for use in relation to advertising controls only, as part of the Government's programme to regulate broadcast advertising to children of foods that are high in fat, saturated fat, salt and sugar. Food and drink that the model might categorise as "healthy" may not necessarily meet the more stringent standards recommended by the school meals review panel—a point about which my hon. Friend may be concerned.
	There has been some concern and confusion among schools, local authorities and other stakeholders about the Health Education Trust's relationship with the Government. My hon. Friend touched on several matters relating to the HET, which is a charity formed to promote the development of health education of young people in the UK. The HET's director was a member of the school meals review panel and actively contributed to the proposed new standards on which we are consulting. The HET is independent of the Government and as such, the Government rightly have no direct control over its activities. I understand, however, that officials have been in touch with the HET to ensure that its advice is based on Government recommendations and standards currently reflected in published Government toolkits.
	My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills has already indicated that she is prepared to take tough decisions on which food and drinks will no longer be provided on school premises, where there is a case for taking such decisions. However, matters of detail such as the inclusion or exclusion of a particular diet—for example, those sweetened with artificial sweeteners—or of carbonated drinks will need to be dealt with once the consultation has finished. The products produced by the company in my hon. Friend's constituency fall into that category. I underline the general point that I made at the outset: no decisions have yet been taken and the purpose of the consultation is to bottom-out some of the more detailed issues. My hon. Friend has made a timely contribution to this process.
	I can assure my hon. Friend that decisions will be made only after the responses to the consultation have been properly collated and analysed, and only after obtaining further expert advice from the school food trust and the FSA. I hope that he will draw some reassurance from the answers that I have given, and that they will prove useful to him in his continuing discussions with the company in his constituency. If there are further points that he or the company wish to make, I know that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will be only too pleased to receive them.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Six o'clock.

CORRECTION

14 December 2005: In col. 1286, line 7 of Richard Burden's question, the sentence should read: "I have some criticisms of Birmingham's handling of homelessness, but . . . "